Teaching and learning Chinese: heritage language classroom discourse in Montreal

This paper explores issues of teaching and learning Chinese as a heritage language in a Chinese heritage language school, the Zhonguo Saturday School, in Montreal, Quebec. With a student population of more than 1000, this school is the largest of the eight Chinese Heritage Language schools in Montreal. Students participating in this study were from seven different classes (grade K, two, three, four, five, six, and special class), their ages ranging from 4 to 13 years. The study took place over a period of two years between 2000 and 2002. Focusing on primary level classroom discourse and drawing on the works of Vygotsky and Bakhtin, I examine how teachers and students use language to communicate, and how their communication mediates teaching, learning and heritage language acquisition. Data sources include classroom observations, interviews with students and their teachers, students’ writings, and video and audio taping of classroom activities. Implications for heritage language development and maintenance are discussed with reference to the findings of this study.

Noticing, exploring and practicing: functional grammar in the ESL classroom

This book introduces six general procedures for teaching grammar to learners of English as a second language. The procedures are designed to encourage learners to notice, explore and practice grammar in context. Each description and discussion of a procedure is followed by two sample lesson plans together with sample texts and worksheets. Teachers can either use these 'as is' or adapt them for their own students. The lessons are suitable for a wide range of students from beginning learners to advanced learners. A final chapter provides examples of lessons in which several procedures are combined. In addition, before each sample lesson plan, the grammar focus of the lesson is briefly explained for the teacher. These procedures all illustrate how grammar can be taught through texts, and they are based on an understanding of the latest research on pedagogical grammar and the role of language awareness and discovery in second language learning and provide teachers with principles they can apply in developing their own teaching materials and activities. The grammar explanations preceding each teaching plan provide a fresh look at English grammar drawing on work in systemic functional linguistics.

Nurturing bilingual learners: challenges and concerns in Singapore

Singapore’s bilingual policy legitimises English not only as the language of governmental administration and interethnic communication, but also as the medium of instruction in all schools on all levels and across all subjects except mother tongues (MTs). As a result of these politics of language recognition, a visible shift has occurred in all ethnic groups away from MTs towards English. To rectify the language shift situation, the government has emphasised that developing bilingualism and raising bilingual children should begin in preschools. In this paper, we examine two top-down official documents: Review of Mother Tongue Languages Report, issued in 2011, and Nurturing Early Learners Framework for Mother Tongue Languages, developed in 2013. Attempting to identify some of the complex factors that influence language shift, we present an intertextual analysis of the Report and the curriculum Framework. In doing so, we compare the consistencies and locate the implicit inconsistencies in the policy position on bilingual education in preschools. We conclude the article by outlining the implications for changing the current bilingual educational models and providing teacher training programmes that maximise the learning opportunities of young bilingual learners.

Cross-situational and supervised learning in the emergence of communication

Scenarios for the emergence or bootstrap of a lexicon involve the repeated interaction between at least two agents who must reach a consensus on how to name N objects using H words. Here we consider minimal models of two types of learning algorithms: cross-situational learning, in which the individuals determine the meaning of a word by looking for something in common across all observed uses of that word, and supervised operant conditioning learning, in which there is strong feedback between individuals about the intended meaning of the words. Despite the stark differences between these learning schemes, we show that they yield the same communication accuracy in the limits of large N and H, which coincides with the result of the classical occupancy problem of randomly assigning N objects to H words.

Podcasting Oral Presentations

This presentation tells how podcasts can be used to enhance the learning experience of English as a Second Language (ESL) students registered in a content-based language immersion program. The students were placed in groups of four and asked to prepare an oral presentation. The topics of the presentations included Financial Aid, College Courses and Course Schedules and Academic Policies. Each presentation was podcasted to give students an opportunity for self-evaluation and feedback.

Contemporary Approaches to Translation in the Classroom : A study of students' Attitudes and Strategies

The purpose of this study is to explore the strategies and attitudes of students towards translation in the context of language learning. The informants come from two different classes at an Upper Secondary vocational program. The study was born from the backdrop of discussions among some English teachers representing different theories on translation and language learning, meeting students endeavoring in language learning beyond the confinement of the classroom and personal experiences of translation in language learning. The curriculum and course plan for English at the vocational program emphasize two things of particular interest to our study; integration of the program outcomes and vocational language into the English course - so called meshed learning – and student awareness of their own learning processes. A background is presented of different contrasting methods in translation and language learning that is relevant to our discussion. However, focus is given to contemporary research on reforms within the Comparative Theory, as expressed in Translation in Language and Teaching (TILT), Contrastive Analysis and “The Third Space”. The results of the students’ reflections are presented as attempts to translate two different texts; one lyric and one technical vocational text. The results show a pragmatic attitude among the students toward tools like dictionaries or Google Translate, but also a critical awareness about their use and limits. They appear to prefer the use of first language to the target language when discussing the correct translation as they sought accuracy over meaning. Translation for them was a natural and problem-solving event worth a rightful place in language teaching.

Teacher’s leadership in web-based language courses in Dalarna University, Sweden

The purpose of this presentation is to discuss how teacher’s leadership can be used as a teaching method in web based language education. The environments that offer online courses provide a wide field for discussion on the contact between teacher and student. My intention is to contribute to the debate on teacher leadership in online courses. In my earlier studies on leadership, I have explored how some religious leaders affected different social movements in Brazil during the military dictatorship (1964-1985). Pruth (2004) by examining the three kinds of legitimacy described by Max Weber I aimed at seeing and analyzing how religious leaders used different teaching methods to explain their messages to ordinary citizens. Thus my research showed how educational leadership is a way to get people to reach their goals. I became interested in the subject teacher’s leadership whenI participated in a survey of the teaching methods of language courses in Dalarna University which is funded by the NGL Center of Dalarna University. In  this project, we have made interviews with the teachers, undertaken the course plans (in the language department at Dalarna University) and categorized the learning outcomes. A questionnaire was constructed based on the learning outcomes and then either sent out remotely to teachers or completed face to face through interviews. The answers provided to the questionnaires enabled the  project to identify many differences in how language teachers interact with their students but  also, the way of giving feedback, motivating and helping students, types of class activities and materials used. This made me aware of how teachers use their leadership or not in their teaching. My focus is to look at the relationship between teachers and students as an important part of the development and quality of online courses. The teacher's performance on campus is different from online courses. I want to understand how the contact between teachers and students in online courses develop and look at how students can make use of this contact and what influence the teacher's leadership has on the ability for the students to achieve the goals of their course

Swedish Primary Teachers' Attitudes towards Integrating Gaming in the EFL Classroom

A current topic in Swedish schools is the use of computer games and gaming. One reason is because computers are becoming more and more integrated into the schools, and the technology plays a large role in the everyday lives of the pupils. Since teachers should integrate pupils’ interests in the formal teaching, it is of interest to know what attitudes teachers have towards gaming. Therefore the aim of this empirical study is to gain an insight into the attitudes Swedish primary teachers have towards online and offline computer games in the EFL classroom. An additional aim is to investigate to what extent teachers use games. Five interviews were conducted with teachers in different Swedish schools in a small to medium-sized municipality. After the interviews were transcribed, the results were analyzed and discussed in relation to relevant research and the sociocultural theory. The results show that teachers are positive towards games and gaming, mostly because gaming often contains interaction with others and learning from peers is a main component in sociocultural theory. However, only one out of the five participants had at some point used games. The conclusion is that teachers are unsure about how to use games in their teaching and that training and courses in this area would be valuable. More research is needed within this area, and it would be of value to investigate what suggested courses would contain and also to investigate exactly how games can be used in teaching.

An Empirical Study on Teachers’ Choice of Extensive Literature in the Swedish Upper Secondary EFL Classroom

The importance of extensive literature reading in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context has been given increasing attention in recent research. Literature reading is also a required part of the national syllabi of the (EFL) courses offered to both adolescents and adults at Upper Secondary level in Sweden. This thesis aims to investigate the teachers’ process of making literature choices for extensive reading in upper secondary EFL courses in Sweden. Eight teachers of three different student groups took part in the study, representing adolescent university preparatory programs and vocational programs, as well as programs for adult students. Questionnaires were used and the data was analyzed for patterns revealing three main factors affecting teachers’ literature choice: language proficiency, reading experience and contextual factors. These three factors were fitted into the theoretical framework of psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic reading models, with the addition of a perspective of motivational research. The results of this survey underline the importance of extensive reading, according to teachers, and that motivation for literature choice can be primarily related to factors associated with psycholinguistic reading models. The survey also points to the need for further investigating of teachers’ own experiences of literature reading, searching for deeper motivational factors which influence teaching choices. Another future field of research is the choice of reading activities assigned together with the chosen literature, which probably also influence teachers’ choices in the Swedish EFL classroom.

Using Swedish in the EFL-classroom : An Interview Study on Swedish Upper Secondary Students’ Attitudes towards Teachers’ L1 use in the EFL-classroom

There is very little focus in previous research on first language (L1) use by teachers in the upper secondary English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom from the students’ perspective. In this context and from a Swedish perspective, this thesis examines what attitudes students in the Swedish upper secondary school have towards their teachers’ use of L1 (Swedish) in the EFL-classroom. The method used was qualitative semi-structured interviews, where nine students in total were interviewed. The collected data was then coded, thematized and categorized. The results show that the students mainly believed Swedish should be used when teaching vocabulary, when teaching grammar and for classroom management. They did not believe the L1 should be used by them in questions and answers and in general talk in the classroom. They also endorsed an overall judicious use of Swedish by their teachers and that their use of this language should be adjusted to the specific teaching group. Finally, it can be concluded that further research is needed on how the L1 can be used judiciously in particular situations and on what attitudes students of varying proficiency and age, as well as students who do not have Swedish as their L1 have towards teachers’ L1 use in the EFL-classroom.

O papel da leitura nas aulas de inglês: uma análise segundo a percepção dos professores do ensino médio de escolas públicas estaduais de Natal

This dissertation aims at investigating the teachers beliefs about the role of the reading ability in English at public state high schools in Natal and identifying the social value of the process of learning English for students of a foreign language. From the understanding of studies on reading, both in the field of Cognitive Psychology, as in Gibson & Levin (1975), as in the area of Psycholinguistics, as in Goodman (1970) and Del Re (2006), We researched the teachers perceptions about the skills and competencies that should permeate their educational practices, through their knowledge about theories of language acquisition as Cognitivism (Piaget, 1961) and Social Interactionism (Vygotsky, 1979) and the official documents (PCNEM, 1999; PCN+, 2002 ) that are the parameters for teaching a foreign language. We took into consideration other factors that influence the choice of the goals and the objectives to be worked out, such as: intensity of teachers workload, number of classes and students per class for each teacher, materials and technologies available, among other factors that will play an important role in the choice of the appropriate methodologies. To conduct a case study, two questionnaires were used in the construction of direct interviews with fourteen English teachers in twenty schools. According to data on the teachers beliefs we could find that for them the reading ability does not seem to have an special treatment in the teaching of a foreign language due to factors that undermine this process and therefore make teachers do not realize the real objectives of teaching English at public state high schools in Natal. As a consequence, the current process of education complicates the formation of autonomous learners capable of fighting for a social transformation

Representações de professores de língua inglesa de Natal-RN: um estudo sistêmico-funcional

Teaching and learning representations have been more and more investigated in the Brazilian applied linguistics field, as it allows the understanding of the teachers representations and how they conceive the learning process. This practice facilitates the planning of actions to improve the educational system. This study aims at identifying, interpreting and discussing some representations related to the identity and professional view of English as a foreign language teachers in different school contexts of Natal-RN. The theoretical and methodological foundation for this research is Halliday s Systemic- Functional Linguistics (1994; HALLIDAY; MATHIESSEN, 2004; EGGINS, 1994, among others). Our goal was to reveal the teachers representations embedded in their language, mainly through the ideational metafunction, as language is the tool we use to express ourselves about the external world (events, qualities, things, etc) and the internal world (thoughts, beliefs, feelings, etc). The research corpus is made of 21 teacher narratives, generated from a questionnaire sent to the teachers, who were divided in two groups: Group 1 (public schools teachers) and Group 2 (private schools and English course teachers). Most of the participants seemed to be satisfied with their professional choice. Many of them see the job as a challenge and an opportunity to transmit knowledge. All of them affirmed that the English teacher is a professional, for different reasons; however, the low professional appreciation was a recurrent aspect among the studied narratives. When asked about where they work, the private school teachers seemed to be more satisfied with the teaching-learning process than the ones from the public schools. We believe that the data analyzed in this study is important to show how some English teachers from Natal-RN see their profession. The results might be used in continuing education courses as food-for-thought in group discussions, as it is extremely important to emphasize and stimulate this practice

A linguagem da reflexão de uma professora de Língua Inglesa: um estudo de caso sob a perspectiva do sistema de avaliatividade

Research about teacher education, carried out in the area of Applied Linguistics (AL), reveals the importance of reflective practices in the professional development of teachers. With the aim of contributing to this area, we present this case study conducted at a technical school in Natal, RN. The corpus of the study is formed mainly from the teacher‟s discourse, generated during a stimulated recall session and the instruments used to collect the data: an initial questionnaire, a video recording of a class and the text transcript of the stimulated recall session. The central objective is to understand the way in which the reflection-on-action (SCHÖN, 1983, 1987) can contribute to raise the awareness of an English as a Foreign Language teacher (EFL) about her actions in the classroom. With this proposal, we begin our discussion presenting the origins, the presuppositions and characteristics of the concept of reflection according to Schön (1983, 1987), and supported by other authors (PERRENOUD, 2002; GÓMEZ, 1995; IMBERNÓN, 2009, among others); of critical reflection (LISTON e ZEICHNER, 1993; PIMENTA, 2002; DUTRA e MELLO, 2004, among others); and of the process of critical reflection (SMYTH, 1992). To evidence the reflections that emerge in the teacher‟s discourse, we found support in the theories and methods of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), which was initially proposed by Halliday (1985, 1994), Halliday and Hasan (1989), Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) and followers, such as, Eggins (1994), Thompson (1996), among others. We focus mainly on the subsystem of Attitude, an integral component of the system of discourse resources, Appraisal, presented by Martin (2000), Martin and Rose (2003, 2007), Martin and White (2005). The results reveal that the actions of the teacher in the classroom reflect not only her professional experiences, but also her values and concepts about teaching/learning languages. The results also show the teacher‟s awareness of the need for changes in her practices. Faced with these findings, we believe that this study reveals important concepts that can direct teacher educators to rethink new ways of approaching teacher training courses. In addition, it also reveals the importance of discourse analysis based on a systemic functional approach.

Avaliando a aprendizagem de língua inglesa em uma escola de ensino médio a partir de contribuições discentes

This study discusses the evaluation of the English language‟s learning developed in a public high school from Lajes-RN in 2011 starting from a qualitative evaluation proposal (SAUL 1988; CANAN, 1996; DEMO, 2008) aiming the production of knowledge about the evaluation process developed in the classes of English language involving the contributions from students. To diagnose and characterize the evaluation process of English language of the researched school, identifying the representations that students attributed to the evaluation, we have implemented the evaluation instruments suggested by students to perform the evaluation of language learning and allowed a reflection about the student‟s participation in the construction of the evaluation process of the English language, subject discussed by Sant‟anna (2002) and other theorists (CANAN, 1996; BRAZIL, 2002; PEREIRA, 2009). To conduct the research work, we use the qualitative approach with ethnographic basis, substantiate in authors like Bogdan, Biklen (1994), Mazzotti; Gewandsznajder (1998), Strauss, Corbin (2008) among others. The methodology was the action research (ANDRÉ, 1995; NUNAN, 2007; LANKSHEAR; KNOBEL, 2008) described as research of empirical basis which associates an action with a resolution of a collective problem, because in it, its researchers and employees are engaged in a cooperatively way (THIOLLENT, 1985). When we treat about the evaluation of English language‟s learning (ALMEIDA FILHO, 1993; SCARAMUCCI, 2009) practiced before and after the contributions made by the students of the second year of the refereed school, the study considers that high school students have a more critical and reflective conscience with regard to their evaluations, not just opining on the assessment of learning English but also about the assessment of other subjects from their scholar curriculum and so this research presents possibilities for performing the act of evaluation which consider the participation of students in decisions regarding this process, because we cogitate that when the teachers share the decisions with their students, teachers can add quality to the evaluation process

Narrativas de professores em formação sobre a didatização de podcasts para o ensino de inglês na floresta

Considering the following conditions: (1) the fluency demands of students in an undergraduate program in Languages and Literatures/English in the Amazon region; (2) the listening and speaking needs of pre-service teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL); (3) my continuing education as a professor of EFL and my academic literacy as a teacher-researcher and pre-service-teacher trainer, this study, which is based on Narrative Inquiry, reports on a teacher experience of working didactically with oral genres through podcasting an activity that emerged with the advent of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Through this process, I engage with some theorists who promote teaching as a process that is driven by a concept of language as social practice. Subsequently, I make use of the notions of context of culture and context of situation, derived from Systemic Functional Linguistics, as well as the concept of genre and register derived from the perspective of this theory. Based on these principles and beliefs, the Amazon region constitutes the register (situation) of the genres used in this study. These principles also provide, opportunities for building learning strategies appropriate to this local context, and also to teach listening and speaking skills from a task-based approach. During the experience, based on the reflective teacher-education model, the participants produced narratives about the process, which I then analyzed according to Ely, Vinz, Downing and Anzul (2001), who propose possibilities of composing meanings in Narrative Inquiry. Based on this perspective, I discuss the following topics, which were highly emphasized in the participants narratives: the lack of didactic activities using oral genres; the relevance of context within teacher education; and collaborative work as a strategy to overcome gaps in digital literacy, language fluency and teaching skills. The meanings I thereby compose point to a paradigm shift in English language teaching within this context. I also argue for a pedagogical practice that is engaged with historical and socio-cultural issues, and with the development of language skills, also one that promotes the implementation of ICTs at the very start of teacher training programs, adopting teaching and learning strategies that correspond to the demands of fluency in this particular context, and deficiencies imposed by geographical isolation